The implication is that immigration is good, and we need more of it. I found it interesting that he did not expressly say this. He is no doubt aware that immigration is a controversial political topic and that there is merit to the restrictionist point of view. Nevertheless, the Republican party decided Rubio’s pro-immigrant story had more political upside than downside.

What do these stories prove? That Americans should welcome more immigrants regardless of the high unemployment rate?

We can stipulate that the U.S. has admitted tens of millions of immigrants, the bulk of them between 1880-1920 when the nation was transformed from an agrarian/merchant society to an industrial powerhouse.

We did not have sufficient workers to staff the enormous plants that were built, to construct vast canals, railroads, and cities. So the country invited in workers, and they came. This does not mean those workers are morally superior to the earlier Americans who came primarily for religious liberty, such as the Puritans and the Pilgrims or simply to colonize the New World for their countries. Yet in discussing immigration, we inevitably end up with the former group that came over for unskilled labor.

But we need to keep in mind after the huge wave of immigration the country changed course.

In 1921 immigration was cut by 90% and national quotas were imposed so that future immigrants would primarily come from western Europe.

There was tremendous concern that we had overdone it with immigration and that we needed to preserve the basic socio-ethnic make up of the country. Thus, we passed from an era of welcoming immigration for employment to an era of selective immigration primarily for family reunification.

Since then each new immigrant has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis taking into account their family ties and ability to find gainful employment higher up the socio-economic ladder. The government has long ago acknowledged that our economy no longer needs unskilled workers, and allowing more of them into the country harms American citizens with high school educations.

We all know that the great wave of 1880-1920 immigration produced millions of success stories. Those immigrants immediately found employment, were loyal to the U.S., and had families who were better off. This is a chapter in American history which is closed. One could hold up Cotton Mather and John Winthrop as examples of the first wave of American settlers whose success here followed their expulsion of non-believers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Arguably they had more influence in shaping the nation by defeating competing European powers with different designs for how society should be run (the French, Dutch and Spanish) and enabling the colonies to unite as an English- speaking nation governed by the English common law. Why do we honor them only on July 4th?

For some reason though, American political discourse is mired in the 1880-1920 period. It’s as if we’re looking at old news reels from that period or watching films like the The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson.

Immigration today is not only unnecessary but is counterproductive. How can policy makers justify a million legal immigrants a year when 8% of American citizens cannot find employment?

In Marco Rubio’s case, his parents were only allowed into the country because they were fleeing Cuba, and in the Cold War, we welcomed them. Rubio’s father, a bartender, added nothing to the U.S. labor market. We did not have a shortage of bartenders in the 1950's.

We can take pride in the fact that his son became a U.S. Senator and has made a modest contribution to the nation. But that is not a justification for going back to the 1880's and allowing a tidal wave of unskilled immigrants into the depressed labor market today. So why bring it up?

We already know about this generation. Senator Rubio should not become a political leader becausue his father was a bartender or that he is Hispanic. His speech said little else, and the implication of it is that we we need more immigrants. One can categorize it as reactionary and nostalgic.[More]